The present disclosure is directed to cable reels. More particularly, the present disclosure is directed to a cable reel having components with independent rotation about an axis.
Electrical needs of modern facilities such as houses, apartment buildings, warehouses, manufacturing facilities, office buildings, and the like, have increased as the use of electrical devices has increased. During the construction of buildings or the upgrade of electrical/communication systems, cables are typically pulled through a conduit from a source to a destination. For example, a building may be upgraded from copper wires for communication to fiber optic cables. To upgrade, the currently installed cables are typically removed by pulling the cables through a conduit or off of support structures such as cable trays or overhead power lines. Fiber optic cables can be run from a source, such as a cable box outside the building, providing the link to the communication network, such as the Internet, to the building or a structure configured to receive the fiber optic cable.
Because of the length of cable needed in certain installations, the cable is typically wound around a cable reel at an installation facility. The technicians transport the cable reel, which may weigh several tons, from the installation facility in which the cable was wound to the site in which the cable is to be installed. The cable reel is typically lifted from a truck carrying the cable reel to the location in which the cable is to be installed by transport machinery, such as a forklift. In some systems in use today, the cable reel remains loaded on the truck and the cable is pulled from the reel while the reel is on the truck. In other cable installations, because of geographical limitations, the cable reel may need to be moved from the truck to the installation location because the truck cannot be physically located at the installation location. The geographical limitations may also prevent the use of transport machinery, such as a forklift, to transport the cable reel to the installation location. This would require the technicians to manually rotate the cable reel to move it from the truck to the installation location.
Conventional systems may also require the use of labor intensive procedures at the cable winding facility. In the facility, an empty cable reel may need to be moved manually from a storage location to the winding machine. Once wound, the cable reel may need to be manually moved from the winding location to the truck. As mentioned briefly above, a fully wound cable reel can weigh several tons. Even when no cable is wound on a cable reel, if constructed from a material like metal, the cable reel itself can weigh almost a ton. The movement of a cable reel from location to location, whether with cable or empty, can be a labor intensive operation having significant safety concerns. In addition, conventional reels require systems, such as capstans to rotate the conventional reel or otherwise assist in rotating the conventional reel.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the disclosure made herein is presented.